The Supreme Court Made It Harder to Access Birth Control

In early July, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of expanding religious and moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate.

The birth control mandate in the ACA requires employers to provide insurance with a range of free preventative care services, including birth control. When the law was passed, it made accommodations for religious institutions to opt out of the mandate. The Obama administration expanded these exemptions by allowing religious nonprofits to refuse contraceptive coverage to their employees by filling out a form that would let the government or the insurance company cover the contraception.

However, the Catholic organization Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged argued that even signing the form made them complicit in allowing their employees access to birth control. The Trump administration supported Little Sisters of the Poor by attempting to roll back the birth control mandate in 2017, allowing any employer, whether a nonprofit or for-profit organization, to claim a religious or moral objection to birth control coverage. The Supreme Court ruling essentially validates these rules and makes denying contraceptive coverage much more accessible.

The Court’s decision is expected to reverse the progress made by the ACA. The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the ACA decreased the percentage of women paying out of pocket for birth control from 20.9% to 3.6%, and The Intercept reports that 61 million women were able to access all FDA-approved birth control, saving a total of $1.4 billion per year.

Now, accessing contraceptives could become much more expensive for some women. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, “If it turns out that there’s no other plan that covers [women in need of contraception], then they’re not covered. And the only way for them to get the contraceptive services is for them to pay out of pocket.” She added, “approximately 580,000 women of childbearing age … receive insurance through organizations newly eligible for this blanket exemption.”

Poor women and women of color are most likely to be affected by this ruling. According to Harper’s Bazaar, a 2017 survey found 39 percent of Black women between the ages of 18 and 44 could only afford $10 or less for birth control. Planned Parenthood’s 2014 survey found 57 percent of young Latina women had difficulty affording prescription birth control.

A lack of access to birth control creates a vicious cycle of poverty and oppression. Research has shown that women with access to family planning are more likely to go to college and be higher earners in the workforce. A 2013 report from the Guttmacher Institute explained that multiple studies have proven that birth control allows for increased social mobility by letting women delay childbirth. Women with access to the pill are not only more likely to go to college but 35% more likely to graduate than women without it. In other words, preventing poor women from accessing the pill helps create a cycle of poverty.

This decision is yet another example of how dangerous America’s preoccupation with religious freedom can be. Instead of being protected alongside other basic human rights, religious freedom is not only prioritized but also used to attack marginalized communities’ freedoms. Ginsburg explained how this decision marked the first time the Court had succumbed to these misguided priorities.

“Accommodating claims of religious freedom, this Court has taken a balanced approach, one that does not allow the religious beliefs of some to overwhelm the rights and interests of others who do not share those beliefs,” she wrote. “Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree.”